Distinguished Gentleman's Pipe

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When a writer wants to show that a character is just a little bit "above" everyone else in the group, in one way or another, he'll give them a pipe. The man with the pipe is usually depicted as being a little bit older, a little bit (or a lot) smarter (often a Professor), in control, composed, unruffled and dignified. Perhaps even pompous, snooty, aloof or a bit haughty. When being held, the stem points back at the smoker, drawing attention to them as being the most important; it can also be used by them to point with.

Generally does not apply to hillbilly/sailor corn cob pipe smokers, who usually defy the trope, though there are notable exceptions.

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Examples:

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Anime and Manga

XxxHolic: Kimihiro Watanuki, who is Yuko Ichihara's assistant, inherits the shop after her disappearance which includes her signature kiseru pipe. Eventually, Watanuki begins to smoke as well using Yuko's pipe and wears similar loose clothing, making him very similar to Clow Reed.

Comic Books

Our Miss Brooks: An interesting case, where Dell's Comic Book adaptation of the cinematicseries finale has Mr. Boynton carrying and smoking a pipe. In the series, the one time Boynton smokes ("Bartering With Chief Thundercloud") he gets sick.

And so did Tony Stark, who is Iron Man...that means every member of the original Avengers was a pipe smoker...except the Wasp.

Jack Kirby, who, along with Stan Lee created most of the early Marvel characters, was a lifelong pipe (and cigar) smoker who is often pictured smoking while drawing. His own association of smoking a pipe with creative/intellectual work may have formed the basis of this trope's use in Marvel Comics.

Bruce (Batman) Wayne smoked a pipe when he first appeared. In fact the very first panel of his first appearance showed him smoking a pipe in Commissioner Gordon's study. The trait lasted for about a year before vanishing.note Though it did pop back up from time to time, as recently as the mid-80s Teen Titans run.

And Commissioner Gordon himself, although depicted smoking cigars in the early years, was soon established as a dedicated pipe smoker. (Batman: Year Two established that Batman himself was responsible for this, having given Gordon a pipe to help him quit cigarettes.) Gordon eventually quit smoking after suffering a heart attack in the late 80s. Flashbacks will sometimes still show him with the pipe.

The none-more-British space pilot of the 1950s, Dan Dare, was also sometimes seen smoking a pipe, perhaps as a Shout-Out to the pipe-smoking RAF officers of the Second World War on whom the character was based.

FoxTrot: When Jason became a millionaire (by converting all his cash into Turkish lira), he started wandering around in a smoking jacket and puffing on a bubble pipe.

Mark Trail smoked a pipe until the 80s, when anti-smoking advocates made him quit. The pipe's gentlemanly qualities were the reason he smoked it in the first place, as it gave him a thoughtful, Waldenesque air, and it made it all that much more exciting when he suddenly dispensed woodland justice with his fists.

Steve Canyon also smoked a pipe, for almost the exact opposite reason as Mark Trail. Canyon's pipe made it clear that he was more than just the average rough-and-tumble pilot: he was a thinking man's fighter jock.

Pat Ryan from Terry and the Pirates was a debonair adventurer who smoked a pipe. Hugh Hefner would say that it was Pat's pipe smoking that inspired him to take up the habit.

A Flintstones print comic has Fred trying to buy such a pipe in a shop, but he's outraged at the price (a shockingly high ten dollars!) and demands something cheaper, so the salesman gives him a water pipe from the sink.

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Films — Animation

Roger was almost always seen with his trademark pipe in the original animated 101 Dalmatians.

Technically, Sherlock Holmes gained his cliche calabash pipe when he made the transition to theatre. He smoked in the stories as well, but his three pipes were a short stemmed brier, a long stemmed cherrywood and a very well-used clay. Starting with William Gillette, actors added the large pipe to make it more clear from the stage what he was doing.

The stage actor needed a pipe he could hold easily in his mouth while working with his hands. The famed meerschaum had the balance needed.

And although Granada's classic adaptation with Jeremy Brett as Holmes is the only adaptation that remembers this, unless you count nicotine patches, Sherlock switched to cigarettes when pipes went out of fashion.

Subverted in the 1982 film version of Agatha Christie's Evil Under the Sun. One of the murder suspects, Patrick Redfern, is seen with a pipe throughout the film, but it's only at the end that Poirot realises he's never actually been seen smoking it. The reason: he's hidden a stolen diamond in the bowl.

In American Indian settings, it will usually be the chief that smokes a pipe (to be passed around as a "Peace Pipe" when making treaties). To some Indian people, smoking together means trust, and "the pipe of peace" is a religious sacrament. Pipes and smoking have many meanings depending on the culture and situation.

Jokes

Why do professors and scientists smoke pipes (if they smoke at all), while politicians and managers smoke cigarettes? A pipe's got a head, a cigarette only a mouthpiece.

Literature

Ellery Queen smokes one, although it appears to be one of his affectations that comes and goes according to the story.

Chief Inspector Jules Maigret of Maigret smokes a pipe in direct contrast to the other characters' cigarette habits. If he's not smoking, he's almost invariably fiddling with his pipe in one way or another. He keeps a rack of pipes on his office desk and another rack on his home coffee table.

In one episode of Cheers Sam Malone started acting very sophisticated and debonair, including lighting up a pipe. Then Diane woke up (it was All Just a Dream). When she looked through Sam's desk she found an actual pipe, causing her to wonder Or Was It a Dream?...then she looked at the pipe more carefully, blew into it and bubbles came out.

Alan Harper from Two and a Half Men, while staying at Lindsey's home, finds her ex-husband's pipe and starts using it to look more distinguished. Unfortunately, he leaves it too close to the drapes and burns the house down.

My Name Is Earl: In "Bad Earl" Earl's friend Ralph is taking advantange of an old woman with bad eyesight and even worse memory loss by pretending to be her long dead husband, sitting around in his old clothes smoking a pipe. Earl then takes over the gig.

The 1986 BBC production of Dorothy L. Sayers' Strong Poison. Lord Peter Wimsey smokes cigarettes (he offers one to the father of the murder victim while interviewing him), yet when he's trying to defend his last working hypothesis to Inspector Parker, he says, "Give me the statutory dressing gown and an ounce of shag and I'll dispose of that in a brace of shakes." The next scene depicts Wimsey smoking a pipe during an all-nighter of study, with open volumes of toxicology and forensic medicine strewn about. He reverts to a cigarette in the early hours of the morning as he discusses the case with Bunter one last time. This has the superiority bit, since Wimsey is proving the police have arrested and tried the wrong person (a trial that thanks to Miss Murchson ended in a hung jury) by building a case against someone else. It's also clearly a reference to Holmes, and it doesn't hurt that Wimsey is an aristocrat (younger son of the Duke of Denver).

Kramer on Seinfeld switches to a pipe every time he tries to pass himself off as a doctor.

Played with in a sweet way on The Pacific — Sledge doesn't take up smoking cigarettes, like nearly all the other Marines, but he does take to smoking a pipe. When his friend back home teases him about it, he explains that he finds the process calming. (In real life, Sledge's widow was so taken with Joe Mazzello's performance that she sent him her late husband's real pipe as a gift.)

Played straight during a Season 10 news segment on Top Gear with James May... and then completely averted by Jeremy Clarkson ten seconds later when he burns his tongue after putting the wrong end of the pipe in his mouth.

In Doctor Who, the First Doctor, who was certainly haughty and considered himself smarter than everyone, smoked a pipe◊ in his first serial.

Discussed by Bill Bailey on QI, who observes that a tradesman who's puffing on a pipe looks much more knowledgeable and trustworthy than one who's taking drags on an Instant Dogend. Fed by Stephen Fry himself being, arbitrarily, the last Pipe Smoker of the Year, an honour which he has mentioned on a few occasions. Became something of a Running Gag, with Bill Bailey pretending to have a pipe to invoke this trope. Taken to its logical extreme when, in the episode "Green" in Series G, he brought in an actual pipe and pretended to smoke it.

The patriarchal Ben Cartwright on Bonanza was occasionally seen with a pipe.

Ultraman: Captain Muramatsu (or Mura in the dub) can sometimes be seen smoking a pipe, befitting of his stern but respecting father-like personality.

On Barney Miller, Harris tries to invoke this with the author photo on the dust jacket of his book. His squadmates are quick to mock it considering that he's never been a pipe-smoker before (or since).

As noted above, Granada Television's legendary Sherlock Holmes adaptation subverted this by having him switch to cigarettes later on, as per the books.

Sherlock gave its titular character a nicotine patch habit due to 21st century London's stringent smoking laws. The show's adaptation of "The Abominable Bride" had Sherlock and Watson puffing away on pipes due to the episode's Victorian settingnote Benedict Cumberbatch said, however, that he and Martin Freeman, rather than actually smoking, were using thermal pipes that merely created smoke from the bowl..

Team Fortress 2: Currently five classes can sport a pipe with specific items, namely the Soldier's 'Lord Cockswain's Novelty Mutton Chops and Pipe', the Sniper's 'Outback Intellectual', the Pyro's 'Bubble Pipe', the Medic's 'Nine-Pipe Problem', and the Demoman's 'Bearded Bombardier'. All of them even come with the 'Genteel Smoke' effect.

As you take the bathysphere down to Rapture in BioShock, you see a filmreel advertising the city. The first image shown? Andrew Ryan with a pipe.

Not quite a distinguished gentleman as much as a Cool Old Guy, Ujiyasu Hojo is often shown smoking an old- clay pipe in Samurai Warriors 3 cutscenes. He's also one of the Kanto region's premier warlords, widely respected as a wily leader and its most steadfast defender, and A Father to His Men besides, thus giving him a lot of weight in social standing as well.

In Return of the Obra Dinn, Aleksei Toporov is one of the seamen in the firing line, and he often carries his trademark tobacco pipe, which he smokes on one rare occasion—-a hint that his identity can be deduced.

Dad from Homestuck has several pipes, suggesting he all too keenly embraces the stereotype of Standard '50s Father. His IM handle is "pipefan413".

Jamie McJack in Girls with Slingshots is a rare female example: her "Romance Detective" character has a bubble pipe (Sherlock Holmes' Calabash-style).

Ada Lovelace of The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage smokes like a steam engine and has a decent collection of pipes. It underlines her general "I'm better than you" demeanour that comes from a combination of genius and nobility.

Ren in some of the Games Animation episodes of The Ren & Stimpy Show, most notably "I Love Chicken" and "Dinner Party." Typically this would accompany him wearing an elegant suit, or a smoking jacket and fez hat.

A short featured Porky Pig living at an apartment and a dog trying to become his pet. Porky spent most of the episode trying to get rid of the dog but, when the dog tricked a neighbor into giving Porky a beating, Porky gave up and allowed the dog to stay. However, the dog started voicing second thoughts, enraging Porky, who decided to force the dog to dress like the dog at the top of the trope's page. The pipe was a part of it.

Harold Wilson, British Prime Minister of the 1960s and 70s, actually invoked this trope on himself. He preferred to smoke cigars in private, but was usually seen with a pipe in public precisely because of the qualities of wisdom/experience and so on mentioned in the description as associated with pipe smokers. Also, cigars are for the upper-class - Wilson was a socialist.

A rather interesting play on this trope is Stephen Fry, who officially holds the last ever "Pipe Smoker of the Year" award, despite being a cigarette smoker at the time who happened to grab a pipe when he couldn't find his smokes on the way out of his house one day. Someone spotted the him with the pipe and he was soon contacted to receive the award.

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